So I've finally gotten around to doing my son's bedspread and I wanted to begin with making all the cording that will be on the top and bottom (it's a fitted boxspread for a daybed).

Do I need to wash the cording before sewing the fabric to make the welt cord? I already washed my fabric and I actually did wash the cording (in a mesh bag) and dried it, but it kind of fluffed out and bunched a bit, and I don't like the way it looks wrapped around the fabric. I washed and dried it in the washing machine, so maybe the spin cycle had some effect?

Obviously, I intend on washing the spread. Does anyone know if I don't pre-wash the cord and make the welting and wash the spread, will the cord get mishapen and possibly shrink (in length)? Or will the fabric covering the cording keep it in tact?

Jim.. if the cording is cotton then yes you should preshrink it..
There is some poly cording and even plastic cording on the market.. but most is cotton..
But you can make up your cording with the fabric sewn on it.. and preshrink them together at the same time..

Thanks so much....wasn't sure if I should try that or not. But seeing how the cording came out in the washer, I think I may go the route of making the cord and then prewashing the fabric and cording together after it's all made. I'll just make an extra yard to allow for shrinking. Cord is cheap and I have tons of fabric!

My biggest concern is that your fabric may ravel back to the seam stitches.. especially on cotton if you don't also serge them..
So just rinse in hot gentle should do it.. then in the dryer.. might want to stick it in a pillowcase to help keep it from fraying so much.
To be honest. I don't always preshrink the cording.. but always the fabric.. I haven't had any problems yet.. skipping it.. but its just that it is recommended..

Oh, I didn't think of that and thanks for pointing that out....I'm going to have to say I might just skip the preshrinking of the cord. The fabric has already been washed, so no problem there. I just didn't like how the cord turned out after preshrinking it since it really bunched up....it would be hard to do welting with it, which is why I went and bought more. At 29 cents a yard, I didn't mind.

John French says to put the welt in a hot bath tub and then line dry in the sun.

------"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem." Theodore Rubin
"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life's about creating yourself." George Bernard Shaw
Dan 9:24-27

That's what I've always heard, too, although I hang mine to dry above a hot register.

But one thing you might try (and now I'm curious enough to experiment with this myself)... my dryer has a plastic rack for drying shoes that fits inside the drum and doesn't rotate. You could probably hand wash the cord in hot water, and then spread it out in loose loops across the rack and let the dryer heat/steam do the pre-shrinking. That will bypass most of the agitation/abuse from normal machine washing/drying.

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